The bodies of the girls, ages 14 and 15, were found early Wednesday near their home in Katra village in Budaun, Uttar Pradesh state, after they had gone missing, police said.

CaptionThe safety of women in India

Mark Magnier / Los Angeles Times

Sobhana Gazmer, 29, who works at a call center in the New Delhi area answering calls from Americans about their credit card accounts, feels increasingly anxious since a high-profile rape in mid-December sent shock waves through the country.

Sobhana Gazmer, 29, who works at a call center in the New Delhi area answering calls from Americans about their credit card accounts, feels increasingly anxious since a high-profile rape in mid-December sent shock waves through the country. (Mark Magnier / Los Angeles Times)

German tourist Carolina De Paola, 22, walks near the landmark Gateway of India in Mumbai in April. De Paola said that during her trip to India, a man on a train grabbed her breasts from behind but she never reported the crime, deciding there would be no point.

German tourist Carolina De Paola, 22, walks near the landmark Gateway of India in Mumbai in April. De Paola said that during her trip to India, a man on a train grabbed her breasts from behind but she never reported the crime, deciding there would be no point. (Rajanish Kakade / Associated Press)

In Kolkata this month, students supporting various leftist parties shout anti-government slogans during a protest after the recent gang rape and killing of a 20-year-old college student in Barasat.

In Kolkata this month, students supporting various leftist parties shout anti-government slogans during a protest after the recent gang rape and killing of a 20-year-old college student in Barasat. (Dibyangshu Sarkar / AFP/Getty Images)

A protester shouts slogans from inside a police vehicle in Kolkata, India, this month after police detained her during a demonstration against the rape and slaying of a woman in Barasat.

A protester shouts slogans from inside a police vehicle in Kolkata, India, this month after police detained her during a demonstration against the rape and slaying of a woman in Barasat. (Bikas Das / Associated Press)

Villagers who were upset by the police response reportedly blocked roads and refused to allow authorities to remove the bodies from the tree for hours, until charges of rape and murder were registered against several men. The local police chief had allegedly ignored a report Tuesday indicating that the girls were missing, villagers said.

The girls apparently had left their home, where there was no toilet, to relieve themselves. Relatives said they began looking for the girls soon after they went outside.

Police arrested two officers and two men from the village and were searching for more suspects.

Autopsies confirmed that the girls had been raped and strangled before the hanging, police Supt. Atul Saxena said, according to the Associated Press.

The station chief in Katra, 180 miles northwest of the state capital, Lucknow, was suspended, the news service reported.

India last year passed anti-rape legislation in response to public anger over the fatal gang rape in December 2012 of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student.

Akhilesh Yadav, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, told reporters, “Whoever is found guilty will be punished.”

Yadav’s father and Uttar Pradesh’s former chief minister, Mulayam Singh Yadav, recently said that the state’s governing party opposed capital punishment for rapists and that “boys will be boys. They are bound to commit mistakes.”

They have grown up in a modernizing India, with 3G networks and 24-hour ATMs allowing freer access to money and information than their parents ever had. They are more educated and ambitious, too, but their middle-class aspirations have stalled in a sluggish economy.

A 19-year-old Portsmouth woman is facing multiple charges following a police pursuit that ended in Newport News over the weekend and involved two children reported missing in Chesapeake, an official said.

Somebody decided to get cute on Twitter during the recent snow, creating an account in the name of Hampton City Schools Superintendent Linda Shifflette and announcing that schools were closed — before Shifflette had made a decision and tweeted it on her own account.